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Comment by KozmoNau7 | Hacker News Reader

Just a friendly reminder: no one on the left (the actual left, not the soft-right mainstream American left) wants authoritarianism.

That's a decidedly right-wing power fantasy.

The people on the left using violence are using it to fight the extreme right directly.

E: for clarity, I am speaking from a modern left-wing position, specifically the libertarian left, which is the strongest left-wing current today. Unfortunately the so-called "left"-wing in many Western countries has drifted to the right, which is absolutely deleterious.

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You'll find an equal number of people on the right saying the same exact thing about the left.

There are extremists on both sides. Anyone living in a highly developed first world country using violence to "defend" their ideals is an extremist. They're only feeding extremism on the other side and it's why political divides keep growing deeper, despite the internet and social networks theoretically allowing more people of different beliefs to come together and discuss differences.

The "both sides" claim is faulty, and lets fascists normalize their viewpoints. As we've seen countless times, the fascists want to "debate" people, because it gives them another platform and more exposure.

That's why "decorum" doesn't work. Fascism must be opposed at all turns, by all means. Otherwise they will succeed in moving the overton window even further to the right.

Isn't it very convenient though when you brand anything to the right of Marx as 'Fascist' so that you can silence those viewpoints by any means necessary? Even using violence?

Nice strawman.

That's not what we're doing. We're not silencing anyone, only fighting back when they try to spread hatred and incite violence against minorities.

It is resistance, not aggression.

That's not true though. There have been countless of instances where perfectly reasonable positions have been branded by leftists as 'Fascist' in order to justify themselves in initiating aggression - unprovoked. Then they perform Olympic level metal gymnastics to justify themselves on how they are not at fault but the other side's fault for 'spreading hate'. People are starting to see through authoritarians like those and have increasingly stop falling for that bullshit.

Authoritarian, or totalitarian tendencies are often naturally produced by absolute conviction in "us being good, them being evil". Even when one's ideology in theory insists on democracy, and compromise, it's very easy to tell "ok, we just need to save democracy/planet/nature/humanity by crushing the evil people, and then there will be bright future". This is compatible with practically any ideology, because it calls just for one exception, sort of war to end all wars. Besides, it's always possible to re-define the very meaning of democracy, and compromise to suit an urge to get rid of opponents.

Btw, your use of left-wing term is the classical No true Scotsman fallacy.

Did you just excused a whole political side by saying they only use violence to fight the bad guys?

The far right says the same.

This idea that the left are the good guys and care about the poor and vulnerable it’s their m.o. since the beginning but any serious book about the 20th century will obliterate that image.

They care about the poor and vulnerable as long as they support their power grabs. Otherwise they send them to the Gulags or execute them - and the excuse is always the same "It's for your own good".

> specifically the libertarian left, which is the strongest left-wing current today

Not sure if serious... "Libertarian left" is not even close to being the strongest libertarian current today, so to suggest that it's "the strongest left-wing current" is beyond ludicrous. Don't get me wrong I even think left-libertarianism has a lot to go for from a purely intellectual POV, but that's some serious wishful thinking.

Whoa my friend!

People from the left have practiced extreme authoritarianism in the past (Stalin, Mao, Khmer Rouge).

There's no reason to think they won't in the future.

The extreme left and right behave exactly the same way, while saying different things.

Analysing left v right is less useful than analysing authoritarian v non-authoritarian.

Um, I'm pretty sure my coyntry has had it's share of socialists who were also stalinists.

Not sure of the context you meant, but in the general context left can be bullish on authoritarianism.

So I see downvotes. I think it's a pretty dangerous delusion to think that the side one politically sides with:

a) would not have authoritarians

b) hence could not implement authoritarian power structure if it became prominent

History has shown that authoritarianism can rise in what ever political ideology.

Pretending that ones political collaborators did not include at least some potential authoritarians (even if not vocal) is politically quite naive, despite what the common accepted mainstream position in ones party is.

Fair point, stalinists are authoritarian.

They're also a relatively tiny group of ridiculous LARPers that no one takes seriously.

Except for that time in Russia when they murdered millions of people because those people were trying to normalize fascist speech.

authoritarians tend to speak in absolutes

> I am speaking from a modern left-wing position, specifically the libertarian left, which is the strongest left-wing current today.

The strongest left-wing group today is the Communist Party of China...

That's not true. The strongest leftist movement in the Western world now is Progressivism, which is statist and not libertarian at all.

Let's not forget that the Progressives lauded Hitler and his eugenics program in the 30s shall we.

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